# Exercise 3: Future Self Vision — planning with perspective

- **Episode:** [228](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/228.md) (2025-09-02)
- **Type:** other
- **Tags:** future-self, vision, planning
- **Time:** 18:34–28:05 (start 1114s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/228?t=1114](https://truthliesandwork.com/228?t=1114)

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[18:34] Al Elliott: Okay. So talking of doing it, can we just pause for a second and go for a quick break? And then when we come back, what are we doing after the break?
[18:40] Leanne Elliott: Future self vision. So after the break, we'll be looking ahead
[18:43] Al Elliott: Brilliant. We'll see you in a second
[19:57] Al Elliott: It can
[20:04] Leanne Elliott: But come back
[20:05] Al Elliott: Yeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back. I'll cut that out. Keep that in. Okay, welcome back. Future self vision, I think was what you said, wasn't it?
[20:18] Leanne Elliott: Yes. So we're looking at something that stems from research from UCLA psychologist Hal Hirschfield. So, what Hal did is use neuroimaging studies and found that when we think about our future selves, our brains light up as if we're thinking about strangers, which is somewhat problematic because we're not often kind to ourselves in the moment because we won't think about future Leanne. That's nothing connected with me. That's too abstract. So, it's hard to do things like save for retirement or stick to long-term goals. Because it feels like we're doing things for favors. People, we're doing favors for people who don't really matter that much
[20:58] Al Elliott: Oh, that makes sense. So when you think about, for example, I want to be someone who goes to the gym like twice or 3 times a week. I am not someone who goes to the gym 3 or 4 times a week. I go, I don't, I think I've been 3 or 4 times in my entire life. So I wanna be that person, but in my brain, that person is just such a total stranger to me. That I can't either, I can't see the way to get to be that person, or it's very easy for me to say, do you know what? Maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow I'll go for a long walk
[21:29] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. What this research went on to find is that when we actually visualise our future selves really vividly, then we can make better long-term decisions. So actually, in one study, people who saw digitally aged photos of themselves allocated 30% more money to retirement savings
[21:49] Al Elliott: Well, that makes sense. And I think there's, there's something like, um, I think it's Norman Vincent Peale who said, uh, whatever the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve, which is a bit of a cheesy thing to say. But from what I've understood is there's some science that shows that when you imagine yourself doing something, not your future self, but imagine yourself doing something, it's the same brain receptors on an fMRI that light up as if you were actually doing it. Mm-hmm. Is that, is that right? Have I made that up?
[22:16] Leanne Elliott: Yeah. No, no, that sounds, sounds right. Yeah
[22:17] Al Elliott: So by vividly imagining it, and we're not talking about this whole like, you know, sit and cross-legged in the middle of a field imagining, you know, it's think about, look at footballers. The majority of footballers imagine scoring and it goes through their head so vividly that when it comes to the point where they've got an opportunity to score, they score. Same with racing drivers, with rally drivers. Rally drivers imagine the course. Skiers, they're very famous for just imagining going through the course at the beginning of it. So this isn't some kind of wanky little sort of new age thing. This is actually, it works and professional people use this
[22:51] Leanne Elliott: They do. And it can be really practical as well. So what we're gonna do to use this neuroscience is imagine what Al is gonna look like on December 31st, 2025. So heading into New Year's Eve. So—
[23:06] Al Elliott: Guarantee he's gonna be fatter
[23:07] Leanne Elliott: Oh wait, we don't know that. Al might be going to the gym. But basically all you're gonna do is just think about, write it down or think out loud, Al, because it's probably better for the medium of audio. I want you to describe to me what you are proud of. What have you achieved that you're really proud of by the end of December?
[23:26] Al Elliott: So let's fast forward to December. I think what I'm proud of is getting our secret, top secret project off the ground and at least 3 or 4 people having given us some money. Basically, if we've sold it, sold the consultancy
[23:43] Leanne Elliott: Mm-hmm. So how does that feel to have done that?
[23:46] Al Elliott: Well, that feels great. And you know what's interesting? And I know this is a very privileged position. The money doesn't really interest me that much. What interests— what I'd be so proud of is that I have managed to relay the value of our top secret project, which obviously involved my wife doing consultancy around workplace wellbeing. I don't think it takes a genius to work out that that was the case. But That I have managed to convince a stranger of the value that Leanne's going to bring in advance. And so therefore they trusted me enough to give me some money. And I think that, I just wanna be clear that when I say some money, I'm not like going, oh, it's gonna be cheap. It's, it's not gonna be cheap. It's gonna be expensive. But the difference is that if someone gives you some money for a future, uh, for a future event or a future outcome, They trust you enough, and that trust is so difficult to do. It's like there's no real difference between someone giving you £1 and what someone giving you £1 million, because to get someone to go from, I'll have it for free, to, I'll give you a pound for it, there's a huge jump to get someone to trust you. So unpack that and tell me about what happened in my childhood to make me think like that
[24:57] Leanne Elliott: Well, why is that the most, the thing you're most proud of? Because we're gonna do loads of things over the next few months, right? We're gonna get some really cool guests on. We might have another surge in growth. We might do that other thing that we've been working on, tip-tapping away at. Why is it this secret wellbeing project that you're achieving, that is the thing you'll be most proud of?
[25:21] Al Elliott: I think partly because it's been about 4 years in the making behind the scenes. Um, it's the culmination of everything, you know, And things I've learned. Um, it'll also be me going back to my marketing roots. I used to do a load of marketing. I had a marketing agency and I haven't done marketing for, for years now. I did, of course, I do a little bit on the podcast, but it would be, if we just, if we finished the year and we didn't do anything like that, looking at the opposite, then all we've done is the podcast, which is cool, and it pays us a nice amount of money. Thank you very much, HubSpot. We love that money
[25:59] Leanne Elliott: Love HubSpot
[26:00] Al Elliott: Love HubSpot. But that would be the same. We'd just achieve the same thing we did the year before. Whereas this is something different. This is, we have, do you know what it is? I think we've taken something, or I will have taken something that doesn't exist and I will make it exist
[26:17] Leanne Elliott: That's— Entrepreneur 101, my friend
[26:20] Al Elliott: That's what it's gonna be. And that genuinely, I felt myself feeling a bit differently when I said that. I'll bring something into the world that A, the world needs, or I believe they will. Um, and B, I've brought it in, it didn't exist, and it does exist now
[26:35] Leanne Elliott: Brilliant. So what we've done there, what you've done there, Al, is by examining it a bit more, and that's all coaching is, right? Coaching questions like that, which is essentially why is, is the basis of any coaching question, is you've taken it from, oh, we're gonna sell this product and people are gonna give us money for it, to I'm gonna create something that's not existed before that people need, that's gonna make an impact. I'm gonna feel really proud of that because that's reflective of who I am as a professional and what gets me excited. That is an excellent, excellent goal, Al. An excellent thing for future Al to be proud of
[27:10] Al Elliott: Can I just thank you, listener, for going along with my sort of 3 or 4 minutes of rambling? I think in a normal situation, you probably would go away for 5 minutes, think about it, and write it down. So that's about it. In this medium, that'd be quite dull to have dead air. So
[27:23] Leanne Elliott: You would, but I think you'd probably go through a similar a similar conversational process, either with your— with yourself on paper. It might be that first thing you thought of that you're proud of. You'd think, actually, that isn't the thing I'm going to be most proud of. It's going to be something else. But it's getting to that because that was your objective, that one thing. If this was more of a curiosity-based exercise, it might be more about what's not necessarily the thing you're most proud of, but what's the thing that's the coolest thing that you've discovered or the best idea that you've You've had, or, you know, it's switching it slightly to meet the objective that we're after. But you wanted that one thing, Al. So is that your one thing?
[28:00] Al Elliott: Yeah, that's my one thing
[28:02] Leanne Elliott: Brilliant. So let's go on to our next exercise, which is making it happen